


Poetry In Motion

by ThayerKerbasy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Light BDSM, Pre-Canon, That One Thing People Won't Stop Asking Me To Write, Time Travel, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 20:38:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12116784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThayerKerbasy/pseuds/ThayerKerbasy
Summary: Always on the lookout for anything that might buy him power and influence, Crowley hears word of something which could possibly be bigger than anything he's found yet.  Unfortunately, he isn't the only one who wants it.  (Set before existing canon)





	Poetry In Motion

As happened quite often, Crowley was privy to information unavailable to your average demon. They didn’t call him King of the Crossroads for nothing, and his latest scoop could put everything before it to shame. While it was technically correct that his job was to acquire souls for Hell, Crowley found it much more profitable to allow certain less-tarnished individuals to buy back their souls. Of course it cost them far more in the way of priceless goods and invaluable information than they ever received in their original deals, but he liked to think they valued their souls that much more when they earned them back.

His most recent information came to him courtesy of an employee of the Royal Ontario Museum who had sold his soul to save his child from a terminal illness — the name of which escaped him for the moment. According to the fellow’s intel, the ROM had recently acquired a shipment for their Mesopotamian exhibit, and like everyone else who worked for Crowley, he immediately sold out his employer. Crowley took one look at the shipping manifest and decided it was something he needed to acquire in person.

As the indebted schmuck led him to the storage area where the item awaited cataloguing, Crowley allowed himself to imagine the respect that would be his when he delivered his prize to Lilith. He would be granted power, influence, and possibly a greater percentage of souls, but most importantly, he would earn credibility. It took a lot to get on Lilith’s good side, but it was a good place to be.

Entering the room, the man’s steps slowed and then stopped at the sight of a blonde woman in a navy blue power suit slipping something stone tablet-like into her purse. He managed to say, “Hey! You can’t—” before she disappeared in a rustle of wind that left documenting paperwork in disarray.

It took Crowley an embarrassingly long time to react, mostly because he was busy being taken aback by the sheer power that emanated from the woman. There was only one sort of being who was _that_ powerful, but he had never seen one in person. Once he wrapped his brain around the notion, though, he realized something else.

“The tablet. Tell me that wasn’t—”

The man nodded sadly. “It was. I swear, I gave you accurate information and I had nothing to do with that woman getting in here. I don’t know how she found out about it, but please, I promise, I’ll make it up to you.”

Rolling his eyes, Crowley waved him off with a dismissive hand. “You still have nine years to buy your soul back. Don’t waste them.” 

Backing out of the room, the man thanked him until the words threatened to lose all meaning. Crowley ignored him in favour of investigating the box which had contained the tablet. Plastic bags full of packing peanuts lined the box and in the middle was a conspicuously empty tablet-sized space. Investigation of the surrounding area revealed a similar lack of clues.

With no lead as to where it had gone, Crowley was reluctantly forced to admit defeat. Dreams of power in shambles, he was about to leave when he heard the same rustling of wings. He turned, expecting to see the thief, but saw instead a different woman. A slender woman with auburn hair that cascaded over her shoulders in waves, she wore a tailored grey suit over a white blouse and she radiated power. It felt like looking at the sun.

He had heard stories of angels but had never met one. From all he had heard, he never imagined they could be so beautiful. The stories passed from one demon to another painted them as terrifying, hell-bent on eradicating demonkind, but absent for millennia. The being before him was like unto Tolkien’s Galadriel in her radiant beauty and terrible wrath, and that was simply what he could see at a glance. While Crowley could see to the heart of most folk, he got the feeling that if he looked too closely at the angel before him, he might be incinerated where he stood.

The angel’s already fierce countenance darkened when she spotted Crowley. Crossing the room with long strides, she grabbed hold of the front of his suit and lifted him one-handed. “Where is it?” she demanded. “Tell me what you’ve done with the tablet, demon, or I’ll smite you here and now.”

He held up his hands in surrender. “I don’t have it. It was taken by one of yours.”

She regarded him intently, then let him down just enough so his feet could touch the floor. “Tell me what you saw and I’ll let you live.”

Oh, that wouldn’t do. Crowley teleported out of her grasp to the other side of the room and replied, “You’ll have to do better than that, darling. I’ll tell you what I saw if you let me come with you. I want at least a peek at that thing before you make off with it.”

Whirling around to face him, the angel glared and her eyes glowed the most brilliant blue he had ever seen. “I don’t think so. Give me one good reason I shouldn’t torture the information out of you. I could do that with my bare hands, you know.”

She likely could and the thought was at once bone-chilling and exhilarating. He ignored the former in favour of the latter. “Promise? It’s been ever so long since I got to experience something new. After a couple hundred years, one begins to think there might be no new torments. However, whilst you’re introducing me to a world of new ways to experience pain, your thief will be getting away from you.”

Her hands balled into fists at her sides and she scowled. Finally, she exhaled a sigh and said, “Fine. You can come with me. But you don’t get so much as a glimpse of that tablet unless I agree that you’ve been helpful.”

Crowley inclined his head in agreement. “I think you’ll find I can be most helpful when properly motivated.”

Lips compressed, she rolled her eyes. “Alright, now that we’ve established that, how about you tell me what you saw?”

“An angel. About your height, straight blonde hair, navy blue suit. Put the tablet in her purse and flapped off to parts unknown. And might I remind you, before you do the same, that you promised to take me with you.”

She shook her head, grimacing, and said, “That bitch! I trusted her and she threw it all away.”

Crowley looked at the angel expectantly. “Shall we go then? That is, if you know where to find her.”

“Now that I know who I’m looking for, I can track her easily.”

“Since we’re going to be working together, it might be a good idea to have something to call each other. I’m Crowley, and who might you be?”

“Naomi,” she reluctantly replied. “I hope you meant what you said, because it looks like my colleague went a lot farther than I expected.”

Her no-nonsense flats made the only sound in the room as she crossed the floor to touch his shoulder. The world flashed white and when his vision cleared, he saw a primitive human city on the banks of a wide river. The architecture seemed familiar, like a whole he had only ever seen in pieces.

Beside him, Naomi said, “Eridu, called Babylon in the Bible, in the region you know as Mesopotamia.” She seemed to consider the city a moment before she continued, “Looks like 2230 BCE, give or take a couple years.”

If it weren’t for the fact that the angel was his only way back, Crowley might have considered taking a week or two to explore the city. There was only so much to be learned from books, and Eridu was a pre-biblical city, said to be the home of the written word. If anywhere might have housed a coven of ancient witches, it would have been there, and what he wouldn’t give to learn their secrets.

Dismissing his fantasy, Crowley said, “Seems a long way to go when you can track her so easily. Or was she counting on you not knowing who to follow?”

Naomi ignored his question and disappeared, reappearing seconds later with her arms full of period-typical clothing, already dressed herself in draping folds like the locals. She handed over the clothes and said, “Put these on. I won’t have you alarming the humans.”

Not to be outdone, Crowley dropped the clothes, teleported out of his suit, and reappeared in the local clothing. His arms full of his twenty-first century suit, socks, and shoes, he asked, “Will we be coming back here before we return to our proper time?”

Looking him up and down, Naomi smirked. “That vessel all yours? You took a long time changing.”

“Well, we can’t all be God’s perfect creations, now can we?”

Her smile slipped away. “Drop the suit, Crowley. You’ll either come back for it or you won’t, but I refuse to let your vanity compromise this mission.”

Reluctantly, Crowley set his modern clothing on the ground, straightened up, and strode toward the city with Naomi. “Do we have a plan?”

“Yes. I’m going to track down our thief and you’re going to help me corner her so I can make her regret every decision she’s ever made. She needs to be brought back alive, but I will personally readjust her attitude and make sure she’s demoted.”

“Heaven sounds more like an office building. Don’t tell me, you’re in personnel.”

“Let’s just say, I make sure everyone stays on task, and I do mean everyone.” She reached out and touched his temple and he stumbled a step as his mind filled with words. “There, have a language. Don’t screw this up.”

Crowley prided himself on being able to converse with anyone who might want to make a deal. Languages were his specialty and he learned them all. The new one in his head was similar to others he had learned, but the language had shifted and evolved over the years, so the words he had learned weren’t quite right. If he had attempted to speak to the locals, they would have immediately known he didn’t belong.

Adjusting his stride to match Naomi’s, Crowley held his head high. For every shortcut she took, Crowley had done things the long way. He would play her game, but by his rules.

*

In a back alley, unobserved by mortals, Naomi held a slender blade to the thief’s throat and wrenched the tablet out of her hands. Holding it at arm’s length, she offered it to Crowley. “Here. You wanted to see it? You can carry it back.”

Cautious of the blade at her throat, the thief’s eyes darted to Crowley, then angrily back to Naomi. “You would chase me through time over that, only to hand it to a demon?”

“That demon kept his word,” replied Naomi. “He did everything I asked of him and more. Pity the same can’t be said for you.”

Without hesitating, Crowley accepted the tablet for which he had risked his life. The cuneiform script filtered through the new knowledge in his brain, sorting out an accurate translation. His first reaction was to read it again because obviously he had read it wrong the first time, but no, the second reading was no different. Brows furrowed, he caught and held Naomi’s gaze. “You threatened my life, bargained with me, dragged me back to the dawn of mankind’s recorded history, and asked me to risk my life all for the sake of this? Naomi, darling, I could write better poetry about you without even trying. And this carving doesn’t do you justice at all.”

Naomi smiled thinly. “I know. I didn’t know it existed until recently. I needed it gone before anyone else in my department could see it. I still don’t know how anyone else found out about it before I could get it back.”

The thief said, “You got sloppy, Naomi. I remembered. Not at first, but it came back to me. You shouldn’t talk while you work.”

“I’ll keep that in mind when I’m helping you to forget again,” Naomi replied. “Really, Anna, what did you think would happen?”

The thief (Anna?) said, “What you’re doing is wrong. Working with a demon, fraternizing with humans, taking away my right to free will… You might take my memories, but I’ll find out again.”

“And that’s enough of that. Crowley, fetch your suit. We’re leaving,” said Naomi, her blade pressing more firmly against the other angel’s throat.

With a hint of a smile, Crowley replied, “Gladly, darling. I shall return momentarily.”

Taking the tablet with him, Crowley teleported back to the riverbank where they had first arrived. Though slightly damp and being investigated by several insects, his suit was exactly where he had left it. He shook off the unwanted visitors and teleported back to the alley to find it empty. The traitorous bitch had abandoned him at the beginning of recorded history. It wasn’t even the tablet she’d been after, but the blasted rogue angel.

Crowley searched for something to incinerate but was interrupted when there came a rustling of wind behind him, kicking up grit against his bare calves. Hardly daring to hope, he turned and was greeted by the sight of Naomi alone and once again wearing her grey suit. Perfectly composed, she looked him over, then smiled and said, “Good. I had hoped to find you waiting for me.”

He couldn’t help it. He glared at her and snapped, “And where exactly was I supposed to go without you? You left me in BLOODY MESOPOTAMIA!”

Her smile thinned. “I had to drop off my prisoner. But now it’s just you and me. In Mesopotamia. And there’s a ziggurat not far from here where no one can hear your screams.”

Crowley was a good judge of character, for the most part, and he prided himself on his ability to read people, but he couldn’t be sure if angels reacted the same. Still, he had survived as long as he had due to his instincts about people’s intentions. Slipping into a flirty smile, Crowley went with his gut and said, “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you wanted to beat the devil out of me.”

Naomi’s smile widened, showing her teeth. “Oh cupcake, I’d love to do that and so much more. You and I are going to have so much fun. That is, if you’re still interested in a world of new ways to experience pain.”

There was being too trusting and then there was suicidal. Crowley was anything but suicidal. “Tell you what, love. How about you take us back to the good old twenty-first century and then I will gladly enter a world of hurt in Heaven, Hell, or somewhere in between. I have a perfectly good dungeon if you’d like to make use of it, or I hear Barbados is lovely this time of year.”

Considering a moment, Naomi half-shrugged and replied, “Have it your way.”

Touching two fingers to his forehead, the world went white once more, resolving into a cold, grey dungeon. His hands were shackled to the wall above his head, but at least the shackles were modern steel and didn’t have a hope of holding him if he wanted to break loose. The restraints were all for show, and entirely unnecessary if Naomi decided she wanted to keep him there. She must have known that, so the fact that she still chose to use them said more than anything that he was in for a treat.

The tablet lay in pieces in the corner next to his clothing. He still wore the Mesopotamian clothing which revealed more skin than he was accustomed to showing. The stone wall at his back leeched the heat from his skin through the thin clothing.

Naomi stood before him, completely unchanged, but for the soft glow surrounding her fingers. She seemed to have been waiting on him to regain awareness, because she looked satisfied. Leaning forward, she grazed her fingertips over the back of his hand ever so lightly and it burned in a way that fire never burned him anymore. It was exquisite and he felt no shame in the moan of pleasure/pain that escaped his lips.

Her lips brushed his ear, sparking the briefest prickling of pain, and she said, “Let’s see if I can make you beg.”

Licking his lips, Crowley met her gaze with a challenge in his eyes. “Show me what you’ve got.”

If he was going to willingly submit to angelic torture for the sake of their shared desires, he was going to pay attention and learn everything he could. Learning from a tablet was nothing compared to hands-on experience and Crowley was determined to make the most of the opportunity. After all, that was the sort of thing that catapulted one up the ladder in Hell.

**Author's Note:**

> It's Coldest Hits time again, my lovelies! [This month's theme](http://spncoldesthits.tumblr.com/post/165157406670/spncoldesthits-time-travel-spncoldesthits) was time travel. Several of you have been begging me to write this for ages. I'm not sure if this was what you had in mind, but here you go.
> 
> Comments always greatly appreciated and if you do the Tumblr thing, I can be found there as @thayerkerbasy


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